An Insane View on Patriotism... or is it?

Independence Day... it brings to mind a number of things.  

(none of which is this, but I LOVED this picture)

 

Mostly it's a lot of flag waving yahoo's drinking too much beer in the heat, eating way too much All American Apple Pie, trying to blow themselves up all in the name of patriotism.  Now me, I consider myself a patriot and as a child this was one of my all time favorite holidays. As a young girl, I can remember dressing up in red, white, and blue, roller skates on my feet, flags in hand while I waved my pigtails at passersby in front of the firework stand. True story. I love my country and I never had any qualms about expressing it.  I listened to patriotic music from a young age (thank you John Phillip Sousa and George M. Cohan) and even now I cannot sit while listening to the Star Spangled Banner. To this day, I still tear up every time I hear "God Bless the USA" even though I've heard the song so many times it would make the average person puke, but I can't help it.  Deep seated within me is an overwhelming pride of country, of the extreme sacrifices of those that have died to preserve the ideals and freedoms of this amazing place we call home. 

Over the years, my patriotism has been tested.  As I grow older, understand the world around me more, I can see the changes in this country and I've grown jaded and angry.  But then one day it hit me.  It's not my country that I'm angry at.  The very foundations that this country was built upon are still there, but what in the hell has happened to our government?

Now I don't care what side of the political coin you fall on, this isn't about Democrats versus Republicans, this isn't about Black or White, this isn't about rich versus poor.  This is simply about the way we, as "the people" of this great country, have let our government quit working for us and I, for one, have had enough.  We, as a nation, have become so obsessed with "ME" that we've forgotten what it means to be a "WE."  We have, to paraphrase from Star Trek, have forgotten that the good of the many, must outweigh the good of the one. We have become so obsessed with the newest gadget or our five minutes of fame that we have forgotten that there is a bigger world out there and that we have a direct impact on it. 

Some would call it treason, but I firmly believe that this country's government needs an enema shoved so far up it's proverbial butt that the fall out from it will leave us all shaking and exhausted from the fall out, so to speak.  We have let our nations leaders become so corrupt that we almost promote it.  We have forgotten that these people work for us and instead have become "sheeple" that just follow the status quo and shove our faces back into our iPhones and forget to look at the world around us and ask, "why?"  It's time to say no.  It's time to question why.  It's way past time to hold these people accountable.  It's not enough anymore to have to vote the lesser of two evils.  We need some major housekeeping and we need some honest, strong, hard working people with integrity and honor speaking for us, the almighty buck be damned.

Now I agree that there have been some wonderful things that have come out of Washington over the last 50 years, but there's also been a whole boatload of crap and frankly with the way things are going, I'm scared.  I'm scared for my future, my son's future, and for my grand children's future.  We are setting ourselves up for an implosion of the unrecoverable kind.  The new kid on the block isn't as shiny and new as it used to be and on our 237th birthday, we need to take a hard look around and make some major changes.  If you find cancer, you don't shove your head in the sand and hope it'll get better... no, you cut it out!  It's the right thing to do and in my humble opinion, the founding fathers would roll over in their graves if they saw what we've let happen to this country.  And yes, it is our fault (the common people), we've let it happen.  We've voted these people into office and let them run rampant without accountability, but it's time to stop.  It's time to stop bickering amongst each other and having turf wars or suing McDonald's because your coffee is too hot.  Stand up and grow up and take responsibility for yourselves, for your children and for your government.  It's the American way.

And for me, it's not disrespectful or treasonist at all, it's simple Patriotism!

Now get out there and eat some watermelon and BBQ before it's all gone, but remember, we've work to do people, our future depends on it.

God Bless each of you and, as every politician is so fond of saying, God Bless America!

Till next we meet,
XoXo,
Moi